Finally, figures 5 & 6 were shot two weekends ago over Memorial Day. With each I moved away from single overriding elements and instead included more surrounding features to compliment the main ingredient. For Fig 5, that meant adding just a few of the boulders to establish the arch's environment.

The objective of Fig 6 isn't really about the mountain range or even of the sandstone that makes up the foreground mountain range. I'm trying to showoff the huge tonal contrast between the large Eastern Sierra Mtn's in the background and the shorter Alabama Hills of the foreground. The Eastern Sierra are about ten miles in the distance and 14,000 plus feet tall while the rocks in the foreground are only about a 1/2 mile distant and 4,500 feet tall. You can't really tell that from just viewing the image. The tonal range comes from the rising sun having crested the White Mountains at my back and fully illuminating the Eastern Sierra Mtn's while keeping the Alabama Hills in shadow. In 10 more minutes, the sun will rose enough to clear the Alabama Hills from shadow.

Figure 6 is a study of a single element--the fore and background tonal contrast--like Figures 1 & 3. Unlike the latter whose primary element is physical--the arches in our samples--showing off the contrast was my total objective. The challenge in this image was to have a large enough dynamic range to preserve detail in the shadows without blowing out the snowy highlights of the mountains. The thin air in the Alabama hills does little to disperse the light causing quick transition from dark to light as the sun rose. Only a very narrow time window was available to take this image before the sun chased the shadows away from the foreground rocks. The point here is not only can you use physical elements to be your subject but with a more mature perspective you can look at other powerful subjects to guide your choices as I did with this image.

The point here with these last two images is there are images to be captured even though the location has been extensively photographed. The subject merely provides a foundation but the direction you go is totally dependent on the infinite variation of your imagination. I found myself incredibly invigorated by taking these last two images. The artistic challenge was incredible--overcoming my blase attitude towards the Alabama Hills. Coincidentally, the overcoming the technical challenges of each image was particularly satisfying--I like to feed both sides of my brain I guess. So, the next time you're unmotivated to get out an shoot, look to a familiar area to return to. Challenge yourself to see images that aren't as obvious but are still impactful. You'll be happy you did. I was.

Cheers

Tom